Making Mistakes

🎧 👉 Prefer audio? You can also listen to me share about this in podcast episode #023 here.

Today I want to talk about making mistakes. I’m going to share with you a recent mistake I made, the stream of thoughts that flooded my mind as soon as it happened, how my body reacted, the emotions that overcame me, what I said, and then what I did to do my best to resolve it.

If you’re on my email list, then you probably already know about this mistake because you were on the receiving end of it.

Here’s what happened.

I was setting up some emails in my software in a new way I hadn’t done before so that there would be a special text link near the bottom that would allow people to opt out from just that set of emails, and they wouldn’t have to unsubscribe completely from my list.

I always like it when people I follow give me that option when something they are promoting isn’t a fit for me right at that time, but I still want to get their emails and stay connected to hear about future opportunities.

So I set up an email template with my normal header, signature, and footer, along with this new opt-out sentence and link.

Then the email just had just the word “Subject” in the subject line, and in the email body, it had just the word “Text.”

I wanted to test how I would add contacts to this new email set because it was different than how I normally do emails. In the process of testing that out, I missed the message bar that warned me that what I was about to do would trigger the sending of this email.

OOPS! That email template was sent to my ENTIRE list of contacts. As soon as I realized what I’d done, I first went into denial and tried to prove to myself that it hadn’t been sent, frantically clicking around and praying that I had not screwed up. Then I double-checked and triple-checked, and I could no longer deny that I had sent this email out to EVERYONE.

Below is what I said. (I actually was able to reference a recording to quote myself here because I happened to be doing a recording to show my assistant what I was doing regarding these emails when I happened to make the mistake.)

“Bleep, did I do this? ..."

"Bleep. Oh my god. Bleep. Bleep. Oh my god. It was just sent. It was just sent. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, bleep……(some nervous laughter) (Breath) (Sigh) Alright. It’s ok. It’s ok (Breath) It already sent. Yep it already sent. (Breath, Breath, Breath)

 I quickly drafted and sent a follow-up email to everyone saying, “Oops! I got excited,” and telling them I made a mistake and to look for a real email later today with something great that I am excited to share with them.

Within 9 minutes, I switched from panic and fear and dread and worry to calm, laser focus and was able to take swift action.

Thoughts included…

“No, no, no, no, no, that didn’t just happen. I totally screwed up...

"I can’t believe I just did that. People are going to be pissed and unsubscribe completely. This is awful. I totally screwed up.”

At some point, I happened to remember a real email horror story that just recently happened to a colleague in a business group I’m in. She had hired someone who was supposedly an expert in the email software she uses, and he set up all her emails for a program she was launching. Somehow, he sent them all in one blow to her entire list—we’re talking about over a dozen emails all at one time to everyone. These were supposed to be scheduled and staged out over eight days, and he somehow sent them all at once. She had hundreds of people unsubscribe before she could get an apology email out. Fortunately, many people didn’t hold it against her, stayed with her, and understood that mistakes happen. And she didn’t let it keep her down emotionally as she went into her launch. It knocked her down, but she dusted herself off and regrouped.

So thinking about that story in the middle of my panic helped calm me because I don’t know about you, but if I can think of something worse than what I’m going through, it does help get my inner critic to chill out a little.

Between that and slowing down to take some deep breaths,

I was able to come back into the present moment and realize that I was not in real danger.

I was in my living room, safe, and this was not the end of the world. But my body and mind started thinking I was fending for my life.

Those initial fear responses were strong, yet I didn’t jump on the train to keep panicking and beat myself up all day over the mistake and worry about unsubscribes.

I could focus, take action on a resolution, and then let it go and move on. In fact, I was able to turn it into a gift and realize that I could do a great podcast episode and blog article about making mistakes...

I have gotten so much better in recent years at handling my mistakes with more grace—literally giving myself more grace.

How often have you—and do you still—beat yourself up over your mistakes?

Are you able to calm yourself and take action to resolve them as best you can and then forgive yourself and move forward?

A friend of mine had a coworker who submitted a resignation letter and then said she was off to make “glorious new mistakes.” Wouldn’t that be wonderful if we could view mistakes as glorious? And even look forward to making more?

“There is no sense in punishing your future for the mistakes of your past. Forgive yourself, grow from it, and then let it go.”

– Melanie Koulouris

 🎧 👉 Prefer audio? You can also listen to me share about this in podcast episode #023 here.